The Week That Was june 19, 2011

vietnam Faldo's Return to Vietnam

The people responsible for the biggest and best golf resort in Phuket, Thailand have broken ground on a facsimile in central Vietnam.

Banyan Tree Holdings, Ltd., the Singapore-based hotel developer, is building Laguna Lang Co on a waterfront site in Thua Thien Hue Province, about 50 miles east of Hue. The resort is taking shape on 700 acres in the Chan May-Lang Co Economic Zone, which has a seaport and what’s been described as one of Vietnam’s most beautiful beaches, Lang Co Beach.

“Sir Nick and the Faldo Design team have achieved a wonderfully strategic layout with an abundance of variety,” a Banyan Tree spokesman said, “and we are confident that we will create one of the leading golf courses in Asia.”


Banyan Tree is perhaps best known for having built Laguna Phuket in Thailand, an enormously popular resort with six hotels and a golf course designed by Max Wexler and David Abell. Laguna Phuket is serving as a model for Laguna Lang Co, which will have a slew of villas and apartments, seven hotels (a total of 2,000 rooms), a convention center, a spa, a shopping area, and an 18-hole golf course that’s been designed by Nick Faldo.

The project was originally announced in 2009, smack dab in the middle of the darkest days of the Great Recession. At the time, Banyan Tree said it was betting that the hard times would end by the time the resort was scheduled to open, in 2012. “We think that’s the time the world economy will be going strong, and we will be riding the wave,” the company's chairman said at the time.

The jury is still out on that prediction.

Nonetheless, Faldo's course is expected to open just when Banyan Tree said it would, in the summer of 2012.

When asked to whisper sweet nothings about the course, Faldo paid the usual compliments to his employers -- he said he'd received “a gift” when he was hired to work on such a “unique setting” along “a stunning coastline” -- and he even managed to blow a kiss to the local socialist government: “The commitment of Mr. Nguyen Van Cao and the Hue's People's Committee will ensure that Laguna Lang Co is a true tourism draw for a very special region.”

Laguna Lang Co will be Faldo's second course in Vietnam. These days the Windsor, England-based designer is also working on new courses in Brazil, India, Cambodia, and China.

mariana islands Neo Gold Wings, Back on Track

Two years after its well-attended ground-breaking and a year after its apparent demise, the Neo Gold Wings Paradise Casino & Hotel is showing signs of life.

Neo Gold Wings is to spread over 750 acres on Tinian, one of the three largest islands of what's officially called the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Assuming it's built, it'll feature a casino, a hotel, roughly 800 cottages, a theme park, and a 36-hole golf complex.

The resort was kicked off with great fanfare in July 2009, but a year later local officials terminated the developers' land lease for failure to pay the rent. The tab didn't amount to all that much -- just $173,000 -- but it was enough to put the venture in jeopardy.

A couple of weeks ago, however, the Neo Gold Wings development group initiated talks designed to rectify matters. The retooled group, which now includes investors from Korea, China, and the United States, promised to pay their past-due bills and sign a new land lease.

Once those matters are settled, they said, they'd break ground on the project within a year.

Tinian, which has a population of less than 5,000, is committed to growing its nascent tourism industry with gaming. The 39-square-mile island currently has one casino, and it wants to build three more.

Maybe that's why it sounds as if local officials are glad to have the Neo Gold Wings crew back. “As long as the investment is legitimate and the investor is showing sincerity, I don't see [a] reason to give them a hard time,” one of them said.

canada Gary Player Records a First

Speaking of golf ventures that have found new life, last week Gary Player’s first golf course in Canada made its official debut.

The 7,000-yard track, a Black Knight design (meaning it’s not a “signature” layout), serves as a drawing card for the 900-acre Wildstone resort community in Cranbrook, British Columbia. When he got the design commission, Player said the property was “the most beautiful site I’ve ever had the privilege to design a golf course on.”

Wildstone was begun by Havaday Developments, which went broke in 2009. Last year, an LLC linked to Calgary, Alberta-based Coast to Coast Development bought the property and resumed construction on the golf course.

“It has been a long road, and there were times we didn't think this day would come,” Scott Ferrell, the president of Player's design firm, said at the unveiling.

Havaday planned to build two 18-hole tracks at Wildstone, but Coast to Coast is content to stick with one.

united states Strange Bedfellows, Indeed


Once a month, please, gentlemen.